Cisco is turning up the acquisition heat early this year -- and focusing on various fronts to build out its solutions. Cisco's latest buy is in the realm of security.

Cisco just announced plans to acquire Cognitive Security, a small company in Prague, Czech Republic. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"In a world where malware and advanced cyber threats are enterprises' greatest concern, the need for innovation in security is at an all-time high," said Chris Young, senior vice president of Cisco's Security and Government Group, writing in the company blog. "Mobility and cloud are drastically changing the IT security paradigm, and our attackers are radically increasing the sophistication of their attack methods."

Analytics Play

Young went on to say that Cisco has been listening to customers' concerns and is investing in threatintelligence and defense. The Cognitive Security acquisition is part of Cisco's investment to strengthen the network with more analytics and intelligence to target complex and disruptive threats.

Cognitive Security develops products and services that work to give clients a granular view in their corporatewide network activities. This includes visibility into threats that traverse traditional network defenses, and may include sophisticated and unauthorized penetration into sensitive IT assets, targeted malware infections, or strategically motivated black hackers.

One product, Cognitive Behavior Analysis, reveals the presence of an offending intruder, the methods they are deploying, and the assets they are targeting. Security and IT administrators can then quickly identify the attackers, allowing them to take appropriate action to protect their assets.

Complete Mitigation

When Cognitive's technology is combined with traditional firewalls, network security, content security, and intrusion detection and prevention systems, Young said, it provides a complete detection and mitigation solution that helps customers protect against advanced attacks and zero day attacks in near real-time.

"Think of this simple use case: An employee's own personal device is infected outside the perimeter of the enterprise. Once the employee brings that device on to the network, the enterprise's perimeter defense solution cannot protect against the threat because the device has already been infected," Young said.

"This can cause a full range of negative impacts on the enterprise and the data center. With Cognitive's technology integrated into existing security tools, unknown abnormal network behavior is quickly and automatically identified and subjected to further analysis and enforcement."

Cisco's Clear Focus

Cisco will integrate the Cognitive Security technology into its Security Intelligence Operations. Cisco's idea is to bring together global security intelligence from the cloud with local intelligence on a customer premise to protect against advanced cyber threats.

Young said the Cognitive acquisition supports the networking giant's focus and investment in security and is integral to all three key components of the company's security strategy: cloud-based threat intelligence and defense; common policy management and context; and network enforced policy.